Answering Rhetoric

I still have much to learn about dealing with people. I'm thankful that I am still managing to learn, even a little bit at a time.

Today, I want to wonder about understanding, or at least considering, other people's situations.

Earlier, I've been listening to some songs, and at some point in the playlist, the song Kagen no Tsuki from the anime, Mononoke, came up.  I remember that I had recommended the anime to someone I know, and he said he would have to watch it at a later time since it's a little heavy. Until now, I think he hasn't exactly started watching it in earnest.

I, who's more into those kinds of anime where there's a lot of thinking involved, wondered how it became “heavy”. For me, it was pretty much like the other anime that I would watch.

And then it hit me.

It occurred to me that all this time, people judge others or themselves based on how difficult they find certain problems or challenges. Some don't hesitate to say that “That's a small problem.” I nearly did that kind of thing to him.

I might enjoy taking in insight from the darndest places, but I'm not a very good talker. In fact, I dread having to ask something. For him, it would be easy as breathing. I've been told before that doing it is simple, but it sure isn't easy to do it when you have difficulty trusting the other person to be cooperative.

It's the same with him. It's not easy for him to think about the deeper things so much. He says it's because he's not that smart and he's a bit of a petty person, but I don't really know for sure.

Anyway, I found that it is best to keep in mind that everyone has their own inclinations, and what might be something light for someone may be heavy for someone else. I think that it would be great if people were to help each other to cover for and strengthen their weak spots instead of just putting them down for having difficulty with something so “simple”.

Earlier today, I saw a beautiful mini painting of flowers in a vase on my laptop. I’m not sure if it’s for me, since I haven’t asked the artist as of this typing. (He’s asleep yo.)

Anyway, at the back, I saw the words, “You are enough.” I’m guessing it’s a supposedly inspirational thing, although, to be blunt about it, I’ve seen something similar all over the Internet, especially here on Tumblr and maybe Facebook. It suddenly doesn’t feel that special.

It’s not the point that I’m gonna be bitching about, though.

What I am going to bitch about is how it makes me think about the concepts of human sufficiency and inadequacy.

From what I can tell, it’s supposed to encourage someone. Say that they are enough for anything that they can encounter in life. Along the way, it runs over any feeling one might have of inadequacy. “Those are just feelings.” it says.

In a way, yeah, I guess negative feelings are just negative feelings. They make the worst of problems even worse by making them larger than they really are. Recognizing that those feelings are really just feelings helps keep the issue in perspective.

In my opinion though, there are always other angles, if not two sides, when it comes to issues like this. We can’t say that we’re so much worse than what we actually are. At the same time, we also can’t say that we’re so much better than what we actually are.

I can’t bring myself to say that we really are enough for everything we will face in life. I just can’t. Call me a pessimist, if you will, but I really just can’t.

I believe that we have a natural sort of inadequacy. It’s what makes us connect with one another, like puzzle pieces. It’s also what keeps us connected like said pieces.

We have our own strengths and weaknesses that complements others’ strengths and weaknesses. If we were truly, perfectly enough, as in self-sufficient, would we even have a need for other people? We can just be billions of living islands, if that’s the case.

But it’s not the case.

Another problem it presents for me, cause I’m supposedly Christian, is that it also doesn’t make room for God in one’s life. If we say that we are enough, I’m guessing we also say that He has made us perfect.

It would be great if we were in Garden of Eden times, but no, we’re way past that time. The human race messed up big time cause of believing a snake’s lies and eating a fruit that was clearly labeled as “not for eating.” Since then, we’ve been born outta our mom’s wombs with some deficiency in some aspect of our personhood. Good job, us.

Whatever we lack in our lives, that’s where God comes in and fills the gap. Saying that “we’re enough” is pretty much like putting a lid on an empty cup. Kinda useless if you ask me. Like, what would us as a cup be used for, then? Decoration? No wonder people feel so purposeless in life.

It also presents to me the problem of not having any reason to change. Like, if we really are enough, why change? Why fix something that’s not broken?